


A Lot of Work

by Elise_Davidson



Series: 40 Snapshots [14]
Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: 37. Jump, 40 Snapshots, Kinda oblivious, M/M, The feels, Thoughtful Rush, Young knows mechanics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-18
Updated: 2016-08-18
Packaged: 2018-08-09 13:10:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7803190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elise_Davidson/pseuds/Elise_Davidson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rush overhears Eli telling Young how the physical components of Destiny's drive work.</p><p>Young is kind of pissed when Rush blows him off.</p><p>Feelings ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Lot of Work

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'ed; mistakes are my own.

  1. Jump



 

Rush supposed he really shouldn’t have been surprised.  Condescending, perhaps, even mocking—but not surprised.  After all, the man was an air force pilot and even if he barely understood differential equations for the purpose of studying aerodynamics, that didn’t necessarily mean he was an idiot when it came to mechanics.

All that being said, Rush was _still_ surprised (not _shocked_ , mind you—Young would never shock him again for various reasons) to find Young and Eli in some of the furthest parts of the ship they had finally been able to repair (and have the power) to pressurize and explore.  It was closest to the 15 remaining FTL drives, and unreasonably close to the one they had removed from the outside.  There wasn’t much to see here, Rush knew, since the drives were hardly accessible from inside the ship (not easily and not without suits).

There was enough wiring and circuitry there, however, to begin explaining the rudimentary system and how it worked on a mechanical level.  Young was listening to Eli intently, the odd parchment paper they had been able to start making last year clutched in his dusty, grease-smeared hands with schematics drawn in slashing marks on them.

The drawing was crude but accurate, and Rush deduced it must be Young’s handwriting seeing as he was more than familiar with Eli’s.

Eli patiently answered questions as best he could about the physical components of the drive, but it was obvious that he was more suited to the numerical side that expressed in equations how it worked.

“Why don’t you ask Brody?” Eli asked, a slightly frustrated whine beneath his tone.

Young shrugged, twirling the stub of a piece of graphite-charcoal in his fingers.  That find was entirely useful, but only thanks to Varro and Brody, who had figured out how to sharpen it and make it into something writeable (even if it left smudges all over fingers).  “If I wanted to know about conduits or power relays, I would have.  I figured you’d be the best to ask concerning the FTL drives.”

Eli took the praise with a beaming smile before it gave way to scepticism.  “Wait…no, I’m really not.”  He ran a hand through his ever-growing hair.  “Like…math-wise, I can tell you exactly how it works, how our recharges work, how _any_ of this works.  But you want the mechanics, the actual physical part of it…” He sighed, hands moving about helplessly.  “For that, you’d need Brody or Rush.”

Rush continued to hold back, even as he bristled at the very _idea_ that Brody knew anywhere _near_ as much about the drives as he did.

“And you said,” Eli continued, oblivious to the reluctant sudden shadow on Young’s face, “Brody usually takes care of more of the inner workings, like CO2 scrubbers and stuff.  Rush and Dr. Perry knew those drives well enough to send someone on a flipping spacewalk to remove one, and knew that removing one wouldn’t kill the whole propulsion system.”

Young scowled, but there was little head behind it.  In fact, Rush thought it made him look a bit boyish and resigned, as if he had been told to ask for help from someone else when he knew the answer.  “For one, their work was theoretical, not physical,” he said mulishly, and Rush resisted the urge to scoff out loud, “And two, you really think Rush doesn’t have better things to do—not to mention would _rather_ do—than to sit around  and educate me about something he thinks _you’re_ barely intelligent enough to understand?”

The words came out in a rush, and Young’s face was curiously red by the end, as if once he had started, he couldn’t stop.

“Now, come on,” Eli cajoled, but there was little sincerity in his tone, as if he were just trying to be a good friend, “Maybe if you like…scheduled a time with him, or…” He grasped for words.  “Asked…nicely?”  Eli seemed to know how weak it sounded if the slump of his shoulders was any indication.

Young held up his papers.  “I’ll do just fine by asking you if that’s alright.”

Rush took a certain smug satisfaction at seeing them both jump as he sauntered into the room and plucked the schematics from Young’s hands.  “I’ll be the judge of that,” he said sharply, eyeing the open panels, “And just _what_ would you two be doing to the drives?”

“ _Nothing_ ,” Eli blurt out nervously.  “We were just looking at the beginning of the circuitry work; we haven’t even got close to it.  Colonel Young wanted to know more about it.”

The little-boy-resignation was gone form Young’s face, replaced by a defensive glare.  “Am I not allowed or something?  It’s not like “Property of Dr. Nicholas Rush” was stamped on it.”

Rush rolled his eyes at the barb.  “It should be, what with the damage those hands could do it,” he remarked condescendingly, eyes flicking briefly to Young’s fingers, callused by weaponry and helicopter/jet controls alike.

Young’s face flushed again and he snatched the papers back from Rush.  “Fuck off,” he snapped and left the room.

If Rush didn’t know any better, he would say Young seemed more embarrassed than angry, more… _upset_ than aggressive.

“He just wanted to know more—everyone’s overlapping their training since stasis, and almost no one but you knows anything about the physical parts of the FTL drives.  He was getting it,” Eli muttered sourly, the disappointment evident in his tone.

Rush could practically hear the qualifier at the end of his sentence— _until you came in_.

A prickly feeling settled in Rush’s chest, and he ignored the suspicious guilt he felt curled tight in his belly.  “Well, if he wanted to know, he should have asked.”

Eli rolled his eyes at him as he began closing up the panels.  “Like he would have,” he muttered under his breath.

Rush glared at him.  “And what’s that supposed to mean, Mr. Wallace?”

Eli looked up at him fiercely.  “He’s not stupid, you know.  You shouldn’t treat the military guys like they are, especially not the colonel.”

Rush snorted, but it sounded (and felt) hollow.  “When I see the colonel understanding what you or I do, I’ll do my best to treat them differently.”

Eli groaned in exasperation before leaving the hall.

XXXXX

Rush didn’t think much on his childhood, being that it had been too crowded, impoverished, and had instilled in him early on to get the hell out on his own, preferably out of Scotland all together.  He did, however, find himself remembering a long-forgotten incident from primary school.

He couldn’t have been more than eight to ten years old, and even then, he had worn his hair long.  It was more because his parents were working too hard to have the time to cut it (six mouths to feed beside their own after all) than it had been a choice.

The day in question, a girl—Maureen?  Margaret, maybe?—had tugged at it playfully with a shy smile and big, pretty greenish-hazel eyes.

Even as a child, Rush hadn’t exactly been very tactile, and he’d had all of the too-childish hair-pulling ( _Christ_ , would he ever get away from being the scrawny brother) that he could stand until his temper had cleanly snapped.  He had shoved her off the jungle gym with a skinny elbow and a glare that shouldn’t have been possible on such a young child.  She had tilted her face up at him in the too-bright sunshine, face red and big eyes full of tears, wailing pitifully that she had only liked his hair; she wanted to touch it.

She had broken her arm, if he recalled correctly, but the same slight burn of guilt had clawed at him then as it did now when he entered the mess and Young was frowning in concentrated effort at the crumpled-thick paper.  Brody sat with him, looking slightly apologetic before Young nodded something and waved him off with an understanding stare.

It was then that Young saw him.

Before Rush could so much as acknowledge him, Young had grabbed his papers in a flurry and left the mess hall.

Rush decided not to eat, his chest feeling tight and his throat burning.  Best he could figure, it must have been heartburn from too much of that caffeinated drink Becker and Inman had come up with two years ago.  It wasn’t quite coffee, but was strong enough quell the need for it.

He rubbed his chest as he walked back to the bridge.

XXXXX

Rush contemplated the two reactions he had from Young so far while sitting against a bulkhead strut in the math corridor.  His elbows rested on his bent knees, his glasses set to the side.  Chloe had clearly been through recently; there were new equations on the wall that he hadn’t recalled from a few days ago.  It seemed Eli had come through with her—his handwriting was around some of hers.

He sighed, leaning his head back against the ridge of metal.  Young had definitely been embarrassed and upset.  Rush couldn’t figure out why; it was commendable that a tactical military officer would want to know more about the mechanics of the ship, but it didn’t explain why he seemed to be defensive and shy when it came to asking Rush himself about it.  Young _had_ to know that Rush knew more about those systems than anyone, after all.  Why caution from it?

The more Rush thought about it, the more he understood a bit why maybe Young wouldn’t want to come to him.  Rush had never enjoyed teaching, especially to a novice.  It was easier with Chloe and Eli because they definitely understood the mathematics behind it.  Even with Brody (and to a lesser extent, Rush thought reluctantly, Volker) because they all had higher math education.

And yes, Rush was fully aware that even if Young seemed to have at least a basic grasp on physics and calculus because the man was a damn pilot, that didn’t mean Young had the mechanical knowledge to put his stupid-looking hands wherever he saw fit to tinker.

Rush sighed and left the math hall if only because it was distracting him from trying to figure out what Young’s problem was this time.  Naturally, he knew their understanding of each other was a compromise at best, but he had thought they had moved past this shite.

He ended up wandering the halls, Destiny’s vibrating hum both a comfort and a reminder of what he was doing out here.

That being said, the mission was important, and he had thought that he and Young had understood that.  Now, Young was avoiding him as much as Rush had _everyone_ during the first year and a half or so, with few exceptions ( _Chloe, Eli_...).

It took quite a bit of looking (and really, it shouldn’t have taken him this long), but Rush finally found Young flat on his back in a shuttle beneath the navigation console, fiddling with wiring and control crystals.  Only his waist and below were visible, black BDU pants bunched and folded around his knees and mid-calf where his boots were.

Rush couldn’t help it though, and he wasn’t about to start now.  “Do you even know what you’re playing with?” he asked dryly, settling on the ground with crossed legs beside of Young’s hip, a knee resting against the jut of bone on Young’s pelvis.

A resounding knock against metal sounded, followed by Young swearing.  “Fuck, Rush, can’t you announce yourself like a normal person?” he groused.

Rush smirked beside of him, folding his hands in his lap.  “Where’s the fun in that now?”

Young shoved from underneath the console, jarring Rush’s knee, revealing that he was wearing a sleeveless black undershirt, his jacket and tee discarded somewhere within the shuttle.  He rubbed at his scalp irritably.  “The fun is in me not having a knot of my head.”  The bare, pale skin available was again smeared and grimed with dirt and grease.  A healthy amount of dust coated the curls of his hair.

Rush rolled his eyes.  “Surely it’s not that bad.  You’re military, aren’t you?”

Whatever humor might have been on Young’s face disappeared.  “What do you want, Rush?” he asked warily.  “I’m a little busy.”  He wiped his hands on a nearby rag before disappearing beneath the console.

Rush sighed.  Really, it was like dealing with a temperamental toddler.  “And you say _I’m_ a lot of work.”

Young huffed beneath the paneling.  “You are.”

“Then why am I having to work out _why_ , exactly, you’ve got your panties in a knot with me this time?”

Young’s head banged against the metal and he groaned in pain.  “The same fucking spot, I swear to god,” he muttered before he pushed out of the alcove again.  “I don’t have _anything_ in a knot, thanks.  And I’ve been busy trying to run the ship in a more efficient way so we can _keep breathing_.”  He bent his bad knee up, massaging the tendons and ligaments around it with a hiss.  “I hear that living thing is pretty great, you know.”

Rush sighed, tilting his stare in Young’s direction.  “Is this about Mr. Wallace showing you the mechanics of the FTL drives?”

Young didn’t meet his eyes.  “I’m not avoiding you. You’re being paranoid.”

“Like hell I’m being paranoid,” Rush snapped before he could stop the break in temper.  “The last time I saw you, you were fleeing the mess hall like I’d vented the room to the atmosphere.  What the fuck is going on now?”

Young still refused to make eye contact.  “Look, I’m just trying to learn some things, and I’d rather not have to deal with you thinking I’m a goddamn moron every step of the way.”

“You’re a goddamn moron if you think Eli or Brody has a better understanding of this ship than I do,” Rush pointed out dryly.

Young gave a frustrated shrug of shoulders, muscles waving over bone.  “I don’t _think_ that, Rush; it’s just…” He cut off, looking for words as the same lost look came over his face again.

“Look,” Rush tried, because the way they were going now simply wasn’t acceptable, “If you really want a crash course in Destiny’s mechanics, I suppose I could…find some time.”

Young snorted.  “We don’t always learn well from each other, or did you forget?” Of course, Rush thought, _now_ was the fucking time he raised his gaze to meet Rush’s.

Rush felt it like a blow to the chest, that same goddamn look that girl had given him in primary school.  Greenish-dark eyes stared at him, hopeless and hurt and _rejected_.

 _Rejection_ , that’s what it had been, and something snapped into place in his chest, as if his heart and lungs decided that _now_ would be an awesome time to work together.

Before Rush could come up with a reasonable answer though, Young had disappeared beneath the console.  Instead of leaving, as he might have done before, he stayed by Young’s side.  “I can’t promise I wouldn’t mock you,” he finally said idly.

Young snorted.  “That’s a given, and not exactly giving me an incentive to let you show me anything.”

“I could show you a great deal, Colonel,” and Rush wanted to bite his own tongue off because _what the fuck_.

Young came up again abruptly, grease on his cheek.  “Sorry?” he choked in a strangled voice that indicated he either hadn’t heard or he wanted Rush to repeat his statement, and once more, even beneath the smudges of filth on his pale face, there was a distinct red flush crawling up his neck to his cheeks and jaw.

“About Destiny, Colonel,” Rush responded, quirking an eyebrow.  “There is a great deal I could show you about Destiny.”  Well, _that_ was far more interesting than the rejection, because seriously, Rush couldn’t deal with that broken look on Young’s face, and he really didn’t want to examine it any closer now that he understood the range of emotions that had had Young avoiding him lately.

One problem at a time, as it were.

The blush was still clear on Young’s face.  “Okay, fine.  Set up a time; I’ll be there.”

Rush remained even after Young had gone back beneath the console, reluctantly piecing together a new set of parameters.  He didn’t register his fingers tapping out numbers and equations and calculations ( _both_ of his bloody notepads are full; he’d learned after the last random quarantine Destiny had seen fit to enact and had taken Eli _far_ too long to undo) until he noticed his fingers were rhythmically tapping on Young’s hip.

A new parameter screamed into his mind—Young was saying nothing and only continuing to work steadily into the shuttle, bad knee drawn up to ease the ache.

Ever the scientist, Rush stilled his fingers until they simply rested on Young’s hip, one thumb slipped through the belt loop of coarse military pants.

Young said nothing and only stuck a hand out from beneath the console, fumbling for a tool.  The hand stumbled across Rush’s knee before jerking away to finally grab at a spanner.

Rush said nothing beside of him, and then left one thumb in the belt loop as his fingers continued to write patterns into the material of Young’s pants.  If Young’s hand brushed against his in search of a tool, the touch lingering a bit longer than it took for someone to realize they had the wrong spot, well…

Rush was content to ignore it, if only because it gave him a wider set of parameters to work with.  He tilted his head back to rest on the plating behind him—more than likely, the side of the navigation console that Young worked with—and let the colonel drive.

By the time Young turned up from the wiring and metal, looking triumphant and dirty, Rush had it figured out, and gave a fond, exasperated stare in Young’s direction before grabbing the colonel by the sides of his face and dragging him down for a hard kiss.

He was pleasantly _not_ surprised when Young didn’t punch him away.

“You might’ve said something,” Rush commented, rubbing the dirt from Young’s skin, fingers dipping to press over the jut of his collarbone.  “I’ll point out once more, since it seems to have escaped your attention, that _you’re_ the one who claims _I’m_ a lot of work.”

Young groaned when Rush kissed him again, fingers scrabbling to touch and drag against skin.  “I could have,” he said off-handedly in a way that Rush knew was deliberate.

“But?” Rush prompted reluctantly.

Young tilted his hand beneath Rush’s arm, fingers wrapping to the edge of his scapula and his thumb crossing over a nipple purely by accident.  Rush jerked against him, head snapping back to the metal console with a bang.

“ _Christ_ , that hurt,” Rush complained.

“You’ll be fine.”  Young pulled his head forward and planted a kiss along the offended spot.  “I could have been more direct…but I wanted to learn something you’d find…interesting first.  I went for the FTL drives,” he answered honestly.  “I knew that I could get it on the mechanical side of it.”

When Rush thought about it, it really did come off as courting.  “You were trying to flirt with me by learning the physical properties of the FTL drives?” he asked.

Young had that embarrassed look on his face that hadn’t quite crossed into rejection yet.  “Yeah?” he finally answered uncertainly.

Rush snorted to himself, and tangled his hands into Young’s hair.  “Fuck, you’re a lot of work.”  He pulled until Young’s lips were against his own once more.

XXXXXXX


End file.
